Description

Book Synopsis

Winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award, Mao II is the work of an ingenious writer at the height of his powers.

Bill Gray, a famous, reclusive novelist, emerges from his isolation when he becomes the key figure in an event staged to force the release of a poet hostage in Beirut.

As Bill enters the world of political violence, a nightscape of Semtex explosives and hostages locked in basement rooms, Bill's dangerous passage leaves two people stranded: his brilliant, fixated assistant, Scott, and the strange young woman who is Scott's lover – and Bill's.

An extraordinary novel from Don DeLillo about words and images, novelists and terrorists, the mass mind and the arch-individualist, Mao II explores a world in which the novelist's power to influence the inner life of a culture now belongs to bomb-makers and gunmen.

Part of the Picador Collection, a series showcasing the best of modern literature.



Trade Review
A beauty. . . Delillo takes us on a breathtaking journey, beyond the official versions of our daily history, behind all easy assumptions about who we're supposed to be, with a vision as bold and a voice as eloquent and morally focused as any in American writing -- Thomas Pynchon
A work of fiction not merely astonishingly fitting for our times, but rich and rewarding for anyone wishing to understand them * Sunday Times *

Mao II

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    Order before 4pm today for delivery by Fri 19 Jun 2026.

    A Paperback / softback by Don DeLillo

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      Publisher: Pan Macmillan
      Publication Date: 24/11/2022
      ISBN13: 9781529092110, 978-1529092110
      ISBN10: 1529092116

      Description

      Book Synopsis

      Winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award, Mao II is the work of an ingenious writer at the height of his powers.

      Bill Gray, a famous, reclusive novelist, emerges from his isolation when he becomes the key figure in an event staged to force the release of a poet hostage in Beirut.

      As Bill enters the world of political violence, a nightscape of Semtex explosives and hostages locked in basement rooms, Bill's dangerous passage leaves two people stranded: his brilliant, fixated assistant, Scott, and the strange young woman who is Scott's lover – and Bill's.

      An extraordinary novel from Don DeLillo about words and images, novelists and terrorists, the mass mind and the arch-individualist, Mao II explores a world in which the novelist's power to influence the inner life of a culture now belongs to bomb-makers and gunmen.

      Part of the Picador Collection, a series showcasing the best of modern literature.



      Trade Review
      A beauty. . . Delillo takes us on a breathtaking journey, beyond the official versions of our daily history, behind all easy assumptions about who we're supposed to be, with a vision as bold and a voice as eloquent and morally focused as any in American writing -- Thomas Pynchon
      A work of fiction not merely astonishingly fitting for our times, but rich and rewarding for anyone wishing to understand them * Sunday Times *

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